The rise of groomzilla

We had been engaged for maybe three weeks before it became apparent I’d be the one throwing hysterical wedding-related hissy fits. In no time, I had turned from a reasonable sort of chap into a wailing, screaming princeling, demanding white-gloved waiters, palm trees and a grand entrance by vintage Rolls-Royce. Like the hideous creature that pops out of John Hurt in Alien, so groomzilla was born.

At least, this is according to my soon-to-be wife. My soon-to-be mother-in-law now refers to me as The Dauphin, and there was a tussle over zebras. My point was, why shouldn’t we have a few scattered around the lawn, serenely grazing in the background, as 500 of our closest friends awaited my arrival, I mean, our arrival?

Of course, it was all a joke, since like most British men I consider myself to be extremely laidback and could not care less about zebras. ‘You must do whatever you like’ is a phrase I think I use a lot. But something odd does happen when you embark on planning an event so far in the future. Most men of my age (I’m 33) don’t usually think more than a day or a week ahead. We make last-minute plans, partly because we can, partly because we have to — nobody else sticks to arrangements. I certainly don’t think about what might happen eight months away. Yet when in September we told wedding planners that we would marry in June, they’d gasp and say, ‘What, June 2016? That’s cutting it fine.’

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Ed West

Trump is going to give us a thousand years of woke

So a wedding, like it or not, becomes a plughole towards which your life forms an inexorable vortex. (I mean that in the nicest possible way, darling.) You start to think: if everyone says your wedding is so important, then you might as well go all-out.